Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Silent cosmic explosion of shattered worlds colliding. Volcanic furls of solar fire lighting up the burnt golden worldscape displaying in flaming bursts of moulton gold heralding the birth of the “Fire Wolves of Io.” Melting plumes of moon- fire moulding the dancing array of DNA into burning smouldering embers oflife-giving essences, forming and changing in an altered reality, until the birthing cry of the founding Fire Wolf of Io resounded in a wild, agonised shriek through the roaring maelstrom of a world newly and violently born.

Burnished gold orbs surveying the smouldering world the first of the Fire Wolves had been brutally and dreadfully born into. Its cindered moon- black mask was in startling eclipse to its sun-bronzed coat, an otherworldly glint caught the astral light, shadowing across the volcanic land forms dotted across the newly formed solar terrain.The air tasted hot and of sulphur, twisting pockets of flames still flaring from the cracks and crevices of the scorched surface ground. Shaking itself tentatively, testing each newly formed limb, tasting the alien atmosphere it was born to with sensitive nose it tensed in its own sense of power, feeling the call of its sun-fired heritage to run and hunt and know the furnace of exhilaration that threatened to explode from deep within its burning, sultry-golden form.

It uttered a strange and involuntary noise – a deep rumbling growl of anticipation. An unfamiliar sound to the new born of Io, before leaping away untouched by the pockets of flames that were an integral part of its Fire Wolf make-up. It moved in moulton luxury feeling the flow of bone and muscle, sliding under glittering cosmic coat, searing wind currents lifting it hotly as the star wolf itself flew on winged paws across red-tinged terrain, caught in the joy of being, of its own wild untamed vitality,untouched and all instinct and wild primal hunter. “FIRE WOLVES OF IO….”

All too often in life we cling with the utmost urgency onto the very thing we cannot keep hold of and even when we know it is lost to us our lives are shaped by that all-consuming longing and the fierce refusal to give ourselves over to the process of adaptation. So it is with those who become like fired moulton rock - they are trapped in an unchanging form. We force ourselves into the form of unyielding moulton rock because we FEAR TO CHANGE.

Sunday, 30 October 2011

Raptors ~ Hunters on the Wing

One of natures most streamlined and precise hunters the family of Raptors or Birds of Prey

Introduction

The sight of a falcon turning and circling overhead has stirred and captured the imagination across the centuries, a sight still more wondrous in the times before mankind discovered flight.

Poetry WB Yeats

Irish poet W. B. Yeats took the image of a circling falcon and used it to represent the social and cosmic order in his poem “The Second Coming” Later Yeats also made references to Egyptian culture suggesting connections between his falcon and Egyptian god Horus.

The circling falcon image also suggested a bomber, since the poem was published in a brief time of peace between World Wars 1 and 2.

Mythological Greek god Horus

The Egyptians god Horus, was depicted as being Hawk/Falcon headed. Osiris 1st King of Egypt was murdered by his evil brother, Seth. Osiris’s grieving wife, Isis hovered over his body in the form of a kite and fanned him with her wings until she’d restored in him enough life to father her son Horus. Horus later defeated Seth in combat gaining control over Egypt. The eye he lost, was replaced by the god Thoth.

The Eye ofHorus as an Amulet

Raptors have exceptional eyesight, and the lost “eye of Horus” was frequently represented as a protective amulet in Egyptian culture. Christians named it the“all-seeing eye of God.”

Peregrine Falcon

The peregrine falcon, which is native to Egypt, is capable of not only complex in-flight manoeuvres, but has also been clocked at the fastest speed of any other bird. Poetry found on a pottery fragment near ancient Cairo honoured the sun god Ra in his representation as a falcon.

Norse Mythology

Giant Hrsvelgr took the form of an EAGLE. According the the poet Vafruonismal fromThe Poetic Edda, he sits at the end of the world and his beating wings in flight causes the wind to blow.

Hawks

Australian Aboriginal mythology says that the Moon was in possession of fire but refused to share it with mankind. Consequently a SPARROW HAWK apprehended the fire from the Moon. In Teutonic Myth they represent the wind and Mescalero Apaches believe RED TAILED HAWKS are a sign of good luck.

Greek Fable of Hawk and Nightingale

Hesiod used a hawk to represent the inexorable power of fate. An unfortunate nightingale caught in a hawk’s claws was carried high into the clouds, weeping loudly. He rebuked her, saying, “Goodness, why are you screaming? . . . He is a fool who seeks to compete against the stronger: he both loses the struggle and suffers injury on top of insult” (Works and Days, p. 43).

King Arthur and his Knights

HAWKS, were also used in hunting. Sir Gawain, knight of King Arthur’s- Gwalchmai, means “hawk of May”. He appears to be a version of the Irish hero Cúchulainn, whose father was the sun, the name perhaps relating to the raptor’s solar associations. Merlin, Arthur’s legendary court magician also takes his name from a raptor that was sometimes used in falconry.

Falconry and the Middle Ages

Spring hunting on horseback with FALCONS became a favourite recreation of medieval lords and ladies, finely attired, accompanied by hooded birds on their wrists. Uncovering the falcon’s eyes and releasing the bonds they would eagerly indulge in the hunting of game. Romancing was frequently compared to the hunt in medieval times, and metaphors from falconry were often used to describe romantic relationships. And since Egyptian times, the falcon has remained a symbol of honour and of love. In “The Falcon” by minnesinger Dietmar von Aist she goes on to compare her knight to a falcon and longs for his return.

Sunday, 11 September 2011

10th Anniversary of 9/11

Message From NASA Administrator Charles Bolden

“NASA joins the nation and the world in marking the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on our country. On this solemn occasion, we pause to remember the lives of those we lost that tragic day, and to offer comfort to the families they left behind.

A NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station was able to photograph the devastation of that terrible day, which could be seen even as far away as the vantage point of low Earth orbit. The photos of Frank Culbertson, the only American off-planet at the time, are an historic reminder that this small dot in the universe still has big challenges to overcome.

America's first responders and many ordinary people became heroes on 9/11 and our government has continued since to take the steps that have kept our nation safe. More than two million of our troops have served in war zones. These brave volunteers are protecting our nation beyond its borders and preventing threats before they can reach our shores. They have upheld the virtues of service, sacrifice, and selflessness that have always been the source of America’s strength. As the beneficiaries of their service, we have a sacred duty to support all of our troops, military families and veterans.

Frank Culbertson returned to a different world than that from which he launched. But all of the space station's international crews have demonstrated how space exploration can bring our world together, erase borders and improve the lives of people across the world.

We will never forget 9/11, but we are nevertheless optimistic about the future. It is a bright future for the kind of cooperative exploration that will inspire humanity and lift our thoughts to the higher potential of which we are capable.

NASA is uniquely positioned to continue building bridges in a global enterprise that helps us uncover the secrets of our planet and the universe and brings scientists, engineers and explorers from all walks of life together no matter their race, religion, national origin or background. This is the legacy not only of the ISS, it is a path that we are pursuing for the future.

I hope you will participate in the National Day of Service and Remembrance that will be observed on 9/11. Our nation's unity and the many ways we help each other through adversity are among our greatest assets.

We are resilient. Our nation draws strength from diversity, and we can do whatever we set our mind to not just because of our military power, but because of the power of our ideas, because of who we are: one nation, dedicated to building a more perfect union.

The families of the victims and the continued healing of our nation are foremost in our thoughts and prayers today. Let us join in remembrance and raise our sights to tomorrow's promise.”

(Graphic and Text Credit: NASA)

Today, Tomorrow, Ten Years From Now, We Will Remember!!

♥ For the husband who told his wife I love you one last time before his plane went down in a field ♥ For the wife who stopped in the stairs to call her husband to say I will love you forever ♥ For the mothers and fathers who kissed their kids goodbye the morning they died ♥ For the policemen who rushed in with the firemen to help get others out only to die themselves ♥ For the soldiers who fought back and lost their lives. ♥ Today, tomorrow, ten years from now, we will remember!!

Times of impact: 8:46 a.m. and 9:02 a.m. Time the burning towers stood: 56 minutes and 102 minutes. Time they took to fall: 12 seconds. 2819 dead from 115 different nations. 343 Fireman/paramedics, 23 NYPD, 37 Port Authority officers.

Let us not forget the Pentagon and the people who died in PA on this dreadful day.

Monday, 29 August 2011

The Bexar County Juvenile Detention Treatment Center is trying out a new approach using horse therapy to help troubled youths. Every week for two months, a group of 8 teens made the 60 mile round trip from the Detention Center to Natalia for Equine Therapy, just west of San Antonio where they learn about themselves while working with horses. "They're very tough boys, they're very macho. Most of them have gang affiliation, and issues with trauma, abuse and abandonment," Tamara Lamprecht Vasquez, Clinical Supervisor for the Bexar County Juvenile Detention Treatment Center explains. "To get them out here softens them. They shed that hard exterior and show their true personalities which they have spent years hiding."
Most of the teens have never spent time around a horse. As 17 year old Jesus said "Wow! These animals are so big. I have never been around horses. I've seen them but never been this close."
The teens do not ride the horses but meet at ground level as equals learning about interacting with these large powerful animals with the observation and guidance of a mental health therapist. How they approach horses is has a direct link to how they approach people and challenges in their lives. They learn from that how the horses respond to them. Horses are herd animals. They experience the same kind of feelings. Through them the young men see their own problems and find ways to deal with them. "I am learning to calm down by counting to ten. I'm developing coping skills especially in dealing with my anger because I was an angry child," Jarvis said. "It helps me put myself in somebody else's shoes. I understand what it's like to see my anger through something else. The emotions they have are kind of the same emotions that we have," said Jesus. "When horses are around a lot of people, they tend to get frustrated, same as me. When I'm around a lot of people, I tend to get frustrated," said 17 year old Jarvis who feels the Equine therapy is helping him learn to get to grips with and channel his frustration in a less aggressive fashion.
When one of the horses kicks out, outside of the fence in sudden anger, both 17 year old Jaime and his horse are thoroughly startled. Jaime reacts equally angrily and storms off, refusing to have any participate any further. A counsellor asks the group, what they think is going on with Jamie at that moment, and encourages them to really get to grips with what they think are the underlying reasons for the behaviour. Walach goes on to explain to them, "Bottom line he got scared. Jaime took the whole situation with the horses personally even though it had nothing to do with him." The therapists then worked with Jaime then went on to work with the therapists to learn how to control his anger.
In this way Vasquez says they learn from the horses and each other. It helps them "To pull out that inner self and have that insight and be able to take that back home and work with their families and their futures." 17-year-old Jarvis agrees. "I've learned how to use the skills I learn from this place to benefit me. It was a privilege for me to come out here. This would be a wonderful experience for kids of all ages to come out here."

Saturday, 20 August 2011

28-year-old Mona Ramouni an attentive Sunni Muslim lost her sight to retina damage, a common side effect of premature birth. She has lived, studied and worked in the Detroit suburbs all her life relying on her family to guide her around. As a Braille textbooks proof-reader, she craved more independence. Respecting the feelings of her Jordanian-born parents, who like many Muslims consider dogs to be unclean animals, she also accepted that having a Guide Dog in the home was out of the question.However, Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter, says however, that although most Muslims believe dogs can violate ritual purity, horses are viewed as "regal animals," though, "there would be concerns about bringing a horse into certain establishments and areas of worship as well."Cali, a miniature 3-year-old former show horse, official title, Mexicali Rose standing about 30 inches tall and weighing about 125 pounds."This is a really awesome little horse,"I want a horse that will be a partner for the next 30 or so years. ... What I really want is to be able to take her places and go places with her that neither of us ever would have been able to do without each other," Ramouni said.There are only about five miniature horses besides Cali, trained as guides for the blind in the United States according to Cali's trainer, 61-year-old Dolores Arste.Ramouni paid for the horse, $450 a month for Arste's training and other expenses out of her savings. Since she has had no experience of working with a guide dog, she has had to learn from scratch how to control a guide animal and has worked hard with Cali. "I've never met a young woman with so much dedication," Arste says. Cali’s training took place in both Hatfield, Ark., and Saratoga Springs, N.Y.,where Arste taught her how to get in and out of vehicles, guide through crowds and stand still indoors.Additional training may take an additional two months before Cali can join Ramouni for good, taking up residence in a newly erected shed on Ramouni's lawn. "Taking on a horse as a guide is a huge commitment, same as a dog but with more physical needs," Arste, 61, says. "It is not a novelty. It is a real working animal. The horses can live into their 30s, more than twice as long as most dogs.”Having Cali as a guide has opened up new opportunities for Ramouni, but the U.S. government may soon tighten the laws on exactly what defines a guide animal under the Americans with Disabilities Act to exclude farm creatures such as horses. “The new ADA regulations are under review and final language will be issued later this year,” ~ Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar.Ramouni, meanwhile hopes to pursue a doctorate in child psychology at the university's main campus in Ann Arbor. “The benefits go beyond the practical. Before Cali, I had basically given up. I mean, I had been to the point where I thought, 'I'm going to get nothing out of my life’ And having Cali ... showed me that I had forgotten about all the optimism I had as a kid. When I was a kid, I thought I could do anything. I thought everything was possible."

Sunday, 14 August 2011

This is a temporary post...anyone who's blog is asking for "Choose a Profile" on the comments section, Blogger won't let me comment! It won't accept my email address, NOTHING! so be assured I am reading your posts but if you leave it like that I cannot leave a comment! Sorry :)

Sunday, 17 July 2011

Cairo: War Dog of the US Navy SEALs (DevGru Unit)

(Elite K9 Commandos)

When U.S. President Barack Obama went to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, last week for a highly publicized, but very private meeting with the commando team that killed Osama bin Laden, only one of the 81 members of the super-secret SEAL DevGru unit was identified by name: Cairo, the war dog. Cairo, like most canine members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs, is a Belgian Malinois. The Malinois breed is similar to German shepherds but smaller and more compact, with an adult male weighing in the 30-kilo range.
(German shepherds are still used as war dogs by the American military but the lighter, stubbier Malinois is considered better for the tandem parachute jumping and rappelling operations often undertaken by SEAL teams. Labrador retrievers are also favoured by various military organizations around the world
Like their human counterparts, the dog SEALs are highly trained, highly skilled, highly motivated special ops experts, able to perform extraordinary military missions by SEa, Air and Land (thus the acronym). The dogs carry out a wide range of specialized duties for the military teams to which they are attached: With a sense of smell 40 times greater than a human’s, the dogs are trained to detect and identify both explosive material and hostile or hiding humans. The dogs are twice as fast as a fit human, so anyone trying to escape not likely to outrun Cairo or his buddies.
The dogs, equipped with video cameras, also enter certain danger zones first, allowing their handlers to see what’s ahead before humans follow. As I mentioned before, SEAL dogs are even trained parachutists, jumping either in tandem with their handlers or solo, if the jump is into water. Last year canine parachute instructor Mike Forsythe and his dog Cara set the world record for highest man-dog parachute deployment, jumping from more than 30,100 feet up — the altitude transoceanic passenger jets fly at. Both Forsythe and Cara were wearing oxygen masks and skin protectors for the jump. Here’s a photo from that jump, taken by Andy Anderson for K9 Storm Inc. (more about those folks shortly).As well, the dogs are faithful, fearless and ferocious — incredibly frightening and efficient attackers. I have seen it reported repeatedly that the teeth of SEAL war dogs are replaced with titanium implants that are stronger, sharper and scare-your-pants-off intimidating, but a U.S. Military spokesman has denied that charge, so I really don’t know (never having seen a canine SEAL face-to-face). I do know that I’ve never seen a photo of a war dog with anything even vaguely resembling a set of shiny metal chompers.When the SEAL DevGru team (usually known by its old designation, Team 6) hit bin Laden’s Pakistan compound on May 2, Cairo’s feet would have been four of the first on the ground. And like the human SEALs, Cairo was wearing super-strong, flexible body Armour and outfitted with high-tech equipment that included “doggles” — specially designed and fitted dog googles with night-vision and infrared capability that would even allow Cairo to see human heat forms through concrete walls. Now where on earth would anyone get that kind of incredibly niche hi-tech doggie gear? From Winnipeg, of all places. Jim and Glori Slater’s Manitoba hi-tech mom-and-pop business, K9 Storm Inc., has a deserved worldwide reputation for designing and manufacturing probably the best body Armour available for police and military dogs. Working dogs in 15 countries around the world are currently protected by their K9 Storm body Armour.
Jim Slater was a canine handler on the Winnipeg Police Force when he crafted a Kevlar protective jacket for his own dog, Olaf, in the mid-1990s. Soon Slater was making body Armour for other cop dogs, then the Canadian military and soon the world. The standard K9 Storm vest also has a load-bearing harness system that makes it ideal for tandem rappelling and parachuting.
And then there are the special hi-tech add-ons that made the K9 Storm especially appealing to the U.S. Navy SEALs, who bought four of K9 Storm Inc.’s top-end Intruder “canine tactical assault suits” last year for $86,000. You can be sure Cairo was wearing one of those four suits when he jumped into bin Laden’s lair. Here’s an explanation of all the K9 Storm Intruder special features:
Just as the Navy SEALS and other elite special forces are the sharp point of the American military machine, so too are their dogs at the top of a canine military heirarchy. In all, the U.S. military currently has about 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed around the world, with roughly 600 now in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here’s the link to a dandy photo essay about U.S. war dogs that just appeared in the journal Foreign Policy. Several of the photos I have included here are from Foreign Policy, as you will see. Other photos are from K9 Storm Inc.

As for the ethics of sending dogs to war, that’s pretty much a moot point, don’t you think? If it’s ethical to send humans into combat, then why not dogs? At least the U.S. now treats its war dogs as full members of the military. At the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. combat dogs there were designated as “surplus military equipment” and left behind when American forces pulled out.NB: THIS POST WAS TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM AN EMAIL I RECEIVED.(THANK YOU ARLENE) IT IS NOT IN ANY WAY MY OWN WORK OTHER THAN THE LAYOUT ON THIS BLOG PAGE. I AM ENTITLED TO NO CREDIT FOR THE CONTENTS OF THIS POST, BUT I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS I DID.

Saturday, 2 July 2011

Wolf is regarded in Native American and Celtic custom as the way to discover the deepest levels of inner self, of hidden perceptions and awareness. The image of the wolf howling at the moon symbolises this. On a subconscious level our emotions toward Wolf reflect our confused feelings with regard to ourselves as humans and individuals. We deem ourselves ‘civilized’ but in some form we are still animal, and as such bear a wild spirit all of our own. Wolf can and does, albeit with a sense of unease, prompt us to remember this.

The wolf, is a symbol of the night showing us through our night dreams, many things of great importance about ourselves. To really understand yourself can make for a lonely night journey, but you must be alone, and not discouraged by others beliefs understandings and opinions.

The wolf teaches us to learn about our inner self and to discover our inner power and strength. However, to achieve this, we must take risks and face our deepest fears.

Wolf requires honesty. Though commanding a lot of us, much is given in return; a spirit helper that is always there to assist, offering us exceptional capabilities to persevere.

Listen for, and learn to hear the voice within yourself, which in silence is as clear as the sound of the wolf howling in the night.
Wolf is a very sociable creature, fiercely loyal to their mates, with a strong sense of family whilst maintaining individuality and independence. Wolf packs are outstandingly systematised, but they remain beyond doubt spirits of wildness and freedom. They fight only when it is necessary, using instead shifts in stance, a growl, or a look to make a statement without resorting to violence.

We are reminded not to waste resources and to learn how to avoid trouble and confrontations.

People with Wolf as power animal have the ability to make quick and firm emotional connections. Trust your discernments regarding these bonds; wolf will be there to guide you.

Take control of your life with Wolf’s assistance and do so with co-ordination and self-control.

We can benefit greatly in our lives by learning from the example of the wolf, understanding that there doesn't need to be any conflict between the solitary and social paths.

Wolf teaches you to balance between the demands of family and the meeting of your own needs.

Wolves are absolutely loyal to the pack but do not give up their identity to the pack. Wolf helps you to look at the areas of your life where you are behaving too dependently and those in which maybe you have become too independent.

Wolfs qualities, his medicine, offer us the aptitude to discover new ideas and in turn teach them to others.

Wolf is considered an independent explorer who returns to his pack to pass on the knowledge he has acquired on his travels.

During the process of exploring the hidden paths of consciousness, we too could well make enlightening discoveries of our own to share with and benefit the human pack.

Wolf brings faithfulness, inner strength and intuition when he enters our lives, and also teaches us to live with ourselves.

Wolves are highly intelligent creatures, with highly developed senses, and a great sense of determination.

A wolfs howl is primal, and both intensely powerful and deeply evocative. The howl is used to locate pack members or to let wolves from outside of the pack know their territory boundaries. If you hear your wolf howling, this may be a call to stand your ground, to fight your corner and defend your boundaries.

Wolves hunt in organised packs relying on their outstanding powers of endurance to run down weak and older animals. They have been known to cover 35 miles a day whilst pursuing their prey.

Wolf is a symbol of stamina and strength, teaching you to know who you are, and to develop strength and confidence in what you do.

Whichever way wolf appears to you be it alone, embodying freedom or in a pack, embodying community feelings it is asking you to follow the example in your own life.
Be receptive to new concepts because in doing so you can gain more wisdom. Utilise it well and share it with others. And remember, wisdom is gained through experience, by travelling the road.

Friday, 3 June 2011

Yamakiya in the district of Kawamatu is the latest part of the Fukushima Prefecture to be placed under mandatory radiation evacuation. Like Hirone, Kawauchi, Naraha, Iitate, Futaba, parts of Minani Soma and Iwaki City, all police barricaded, it too is destined to become a radio-active ghost town. In their wake these Japanese ghost towns are leaving animal death camps, with thousands of companion and farm animals trapped and abandoned without food, water or care.

The story of Samu is a small ray of hope in an increasingly desperate situation for both the animals and the owners who have been forced to leave them behind.

Samu is a black and white Spaniel x Labrador, who was also lactating (producing milk). She was handed over to Kinship Animal Rescue (one of the organisations going into the evacuation zones on animal rescue missions) by an evacuee unable to take her to the pet-free evacuation shelters. She believed Samu’s pups had perished.

But once shut safely in her transport kennel, Samu went frantic, desperately trying to escape. Along with her rescuers Samu returned to her home in Kawamatu where the search for her missing puppies began. Whilst they were checking a group of out-sheds Samu without warning but with single-minded determination and driving force of a mother’s instincts she dived straight down and underneath the floor boards. She had heard her pups crying for her but they were trapped and neither Samu nor her human companions could reach them.

Such was their rescuers determination to get the pups out, that no stone was left unturned, and in their efforts to reach the stranded pups, walls were torn down, sheet metal ripped away and plywood unceremoniously kicked in, until finally the floor boards could be hauled up and the first little pup- a female, pulled squirming and wriggling from the wreckage.

Further floor boards had to be ripped up and considerably more effort made before her littermates could also be rescued as they were trapped too far back to reach.

But their efforts were richly rewarded when Samu found herself joyfully reunited with her happily tumbling litter of all four of her missing 3-4 week old pups.

They were taken to a house rented by the JEARS(Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue & Support ) and Kinship Circle, in Inwashiro, Fukushima where they are able to offer temporary shelter and medical care to the animals they are able to rescue.

“KINSHIP CIRCLE, a U.S. nonprofit organization that specializes in animal advocacy and disaster rescue, has been in Japan since March to aid animal victims of the earthquake-tsunami-radiation disaster. The organization is issuing an urgent plea for donations to sustain search-rescue, animal food delivery, and emergency sheltering. Currently based in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture and Inuwashiro, Fukushima Prefecture, volunteers drive hundreds of miles daily to reach, rescue and transport animals to safety.

Sunday, 27 March 2011

CHERNOBYL’S LOST CITY - COME WALK WITH ME IN THE LAND OF WOLVES

In light of the the current crisis at the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor…Choose your future carefully! It is you who has to live in it!

“We walked into a wasteland, grey and desolate. The buildings had deteriorated, windows had been smashed. Trees and weeds had grown over everything. It was a ghost town.” (Pripyat)

Image Credit: timmsuess.com

(Tim Mousseau – Professor of Biological Sciences from the University of South Carolina - describing his first visit to Chernobyl) Along with Anders Møller, an ornithologist and evolutionary biologist from the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, Tim Mousseau has conducted on-site research into the effects of radiation on humans and animals, with highly controversial results. The basic facts of the Chernobyl nuclear power station accident in the Ukraine — the worst in history are well known. At 1.23am on April 26, 1986, reactor number four at the Soviet nuclear power plant exploded, after an electrical test went horribly wrong. The radioactive material released was many times greater than the fallout over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, polluting about 80,000 square miles of land across Europe and spreading radioactive rain as far as north-west Ireland. In the wake of the accident, more than 300,000 people were evacuated and an 800 square mile exclusion zone created around the reactor – “the zone of alienation.”

LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF THE RUINED REACTOR – THE LAND OF WOLVES

Pripyat was built as a town for the Chernobyl power station workers. It was viewed a model town. The apartment blocks were alive with fir trees and rose beds. It was a town of young people and growing families. 25 years on the abandoned town of Pripyat has become a wildlife haven. The Land of Wolves.There have been sightings of wolves, bears, wild boar and moose wandering the deserted streets, and swifts swooping round abandoned office blocks. Likewise sightings of deer and wolves have been reported at Kiev Oblast, situated near the border with Belarus, in the zone of alienation in Northern Ukraine. The only other resident is a solitary guard. Prior to the accident the population had been around 50,000.

The site of the Red Forest remains one of the most contaminated radio-active sites in the world today.

Although radiation levels have dropped significantly since 1986, there are still "hot" regions. the most contaminated areas measuring 300 microSieverts per hour on the Geiger counter, the equivalent of 1,200 times normal radiation levels.

VEGETATION

Therefore it is surprising the vegetation in the zone of alienation has flourished. Like a strange nature reserve, flora and fauna, in the absence of human interference have reclaimed the abandoned land. Scientists have found that since 1990, growth flourished and the ecological effect has been positive. Eighty percent of the zone is now forested; before the disaster, it was just 20 percent. A total of 240 species of animals have been counted within the exclusion zone, most of which were present only in low numbers before the disaster. Giant catfish swim in radioactive water that surround the six nuclear reactors. Since nobody is going to go fishing, they’ll continue to breed and grow.That one should never eat the mushrooms or berries found there and that some of the clover might have six leaves is however another story.

So, could it be that if wildlife can return so soon, nuclear radiation and power might not be as dangerous as we first thought?

AN ECOSYSTEM IN CRISIS

The first discovery that Professors Møller and Mousseau made was that birds in the fallout zone were suffering increased levels of genetic mutations. The examination of 20,000 Barn Swallows found crippled toes, deformed beaks, malformed tails, irregularly shaped eyes and tumours. Some birds had red plumage where it should have been blue, or blue where it should have been red. Because of contaminated food supplies, bird species have declined by more than 50 per cent in high-radiation areas. Only a fraction of the Swallows and Great Tits are reproducing, and of those that do lay eggs, only five per cent hatch. Less than a third of birds survive to adulthood. Professors Mousseau and Møller could confirm that these abnormalities were genetic by examining the Swallows' sperm. They discovered a connection between antioxidants, radiation and plumage colour: showing birds with the brightest plumage are more likely to die. Antioxidants in both humans and birds, help counteract the effects of radiation Brightly plumaged birds migrating long distances eg Swallows, produce a lot of free radicals as a by-product of their very high metabolic rate and , resulting in tissue damage ~ Professor Mousseau. Supplies of antioxidants in their blood and liver offset this. Large amounts of antioxidants are directed to the female’s eggs, causing the bright yellow yolk. If their destination is in highly contaminated areas, they find it impossible to replenish energy reserves preventing Swallows from maintaining their bright plumage or re-directing enough antioxidants into their eggs, so few chicks hatch. It continues down through the food chain. In the areas of highest contamination, fewer butterflies, bumblebees, grasshoppers, dragonflies and spiders are found. "The fact that insects, including pollinators, are sensitive to elevated contaminants has a significant impact on the rest of the ecosystem," ~ Professor Mousseau. There is also another tragedy here. Professor Mousseau has started working with the Hospital for Radiation Biology, in Kiev, on a long-term study of humans who live in the area: more than 11,000 adults and 2,000 children in the Narodichesky region, 50 miles from Chernobyl. The incidence among locals of cancer, birth defects and reduced lifespan is alarmingly high. What will be the consequences for the children of these children????

You have walked with me through the Land of Wolves…There will, without doubt, be many and varied opinions on the use of nuclear energy as a “safe, clean, low-carbon” energy source. But the hard, cold fact that remains seems to be that we cannot live WITH it and yet neither can we live WITHOUT it.

I for one, just hope that we too, do not end our days “Walking in the Land of Wolves.”